Are American parents undervaluing their potential grandkids?
January 27, 2023
This week the Pew Research Center released a study looking at the attitudes of contemporary American parents toward their own lives and those of their kids. Among other things, the survey provides an interesting supplement to the themes of my Sunday column on declining birthrates and last week’s newsletter on “Fleishman Is in Trouble” and the angst of the American upper class. You can see both issues illuminated in the way American moms and dads experience child rearing and imagine a future for their kids.
The question of upper-class angst surfaces in what Pew reveals about class differences in parental experience. When the survey asks parents to assess their degree of worry about various dangers, from depression to bullying to substance abuse to trouble with the cops, for every danger there is a pretty clear class division. Whether the issue is mental health (the most common concern, notably), kidnapping, teenage pregnancy or any other risk, lower-income parents are more worried — sometimes much more worried — about their kids than upper-income parents.
